This invention relates to manipulation of video and data on a video tape, and specifically to the identification and the collecting of representative frames of video to provide a visual table of contents for a video tape.
Standards of consumer-use digital video cassette recorder (DVCR) provide specifications for the recording of video and audio signals on a digital video tape, as well as providing for the recording of peripheral information on the tape or, in some instances, for the recording of information on what is referred to as memory-in-cassette (MIC). This is a significant advance over the limited information which may be placed on an analog tape. As will be explained later herein, consumer-use DVCR standards provide for audio auxiliary data, video auxiliary data, a variety of mandatory and optional data, which is recorded in the form of data packets (PACKs), which are included in groups broadly identified as sub-code data and system data.